


The Little Things You Say And Do

by luninosity



Series: Oh Boy! Or, Life's Better With A Buddy Holly Soundtrack [4]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Emotions, Established Relationship, Holding Hands, Love, M/M, Movie Reference, Oral Sex, Protective Michael, Random Mark Strong Cameo, Sexual Content, Things That Happen At Film Premieres, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:46:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/660050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Welcome to the Punch </i>premieres on an icy evening, Michael has an unexpectedly difficult time watching certain scenes, and James provides an irresistible distraction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Little Things You Say And Do

**Author's Note:**

  * For [papercutperfect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/papercutperfect/gifts).



> Title, opening, and closing lines from Buddy Holly’s “Rave On” this time! For papercutperfect, who wanted _boys sneaking away for some alone time during someone's premiere_. There’s currently one more in the works, but, as this ’verse is all based on requests, any prompts are more than welcome…

_the way you dance and hold me tight_   
_the way you kiss and say good night_   
_rave on, it’s a crazy feelin’_   
_and I know it’s got me reelin’…_

_Welcome to the Punch_ premieres on an icy evening, in London. The skies aren’t raining, for once, but they’ve opened up to reveal cold crystalline stars, shivering in dark blue velvet. The air stabs like needles, when Michael breathes it into his lungs.

He’s watching James on the red carpet, all enthusiastic wayward hair and bright kind eyes, hands pausing to squeeze someone’s arm in welcome or wave hello to arriving co-stars or sign autographs for adoring fans. _Everyone_ adores James. Even the weary city lights, outside the cinema, perk up when James glances around, taking everything in with that glorious smile.

He’s doing his fair share of smiling and waving, too, of course, and fielding the occasional puzzled expression that says _why are you here, not your movie_ , but mostly he just finds himself distracted. Watching.

James laughs at something Mark Strong’s said to him, head tipped back delightedly, and that sound peals out through the crisp night air and into Michael’s chest, where his heart aches with it, just a little: James is so beautiful, standing there, two feet away.

And then blue eyes flit across the distance and find his, and James smiles, a different smile, slow and private and reflected in the tropical-ocean depths, and all at once the night is perfectly warm.

James says something in reply to Mark, tilts his head, offers some elaborate gesture involving both hands and a meaning likely known only to himself. And then bounces back across the carpet, leaving ruffled footprints in the faux-velvet, and fits himself neatly under Michael’s arm, one arm going around Michael’s waist, and the crowd’s applauding but Michael only has eyes and ears for James.

“Right,” James says, and turns slightly to wave at the nearest cameras, “shall we?”

“Yes,” Michael says back, and kisses him, not a terribly dramatic show-stopping kiss, only a little press of lips to the closest temple, but the onlookers and journalists go wild. And James smiles at him again, under the light of the stars.

Michael, briefly, feels like the king of the world. He _knows_ he’s the luckiest person in it.

They walk into the theater together, arms around each other.

It’s an opulent, old-fashioned sort of place: London glamour trying her hardest to impress. Red velvet and gold braid and swooping curtains. Michael raises an eyebrow; James laughs. “You can’t help liking it, though. It wants so badly to be friends.”

“You want to be friends with that chair? The one covered in brocade?”

“Someone should be. I could also be friends with the open bar.”

“Oh, really…”

Half an hour and multiple martinis later—Michael’d witnessed the atrocity the bartender was committing with James’s first drink, and then said, “Hang on, no, sorry, you use a shaker like _this_ —” and taken it away and made a second one himself, and then had found himself deluged by requests—they settle comfortably into their seats, best row but not dead center.

James gets the seat at the end, where the only person next to him is Michael. The blue eyes look up at him, amused, at that.

“Yes?” Michael says, because he has to say something.

“I know you did that on purpose,” James whispers, words feathering along his ear. “You didn’t need to. But thank you.”

“No idea what you’re talking about. Watch your movie.”

They both do have an idea, of course. James takes his hand, in the darkness, as the credits start. Michael rubs his own thumb gently over the back of James’s hand, tracing freckles he can’t see but knows by heart.

It’s silly, this protective impulse, and he knows it is. James isn’t scared of the dark. Not this dark, at least; not the cozy welcoming dimness of a theater, a premiere, their chosen profession. Michael has seen him scared, though; has held him through the shivering, the aftermath, the waking from nightmares while trying not to scream, not to draw attention from those shadowy figures that stand over him in dreams.

Any shadowy figures looming _here_ , any faceless bodies coming too close, will have to go through _him_. They won’t stand a chance.

James leans comfortably against him and smiles, contentment visible even in profile. Michael holds that hand more tightly, and smiles along.

Until he stops.

It’s not the movie. More accurately, it is the movie. The movie’s good. Sheer fun, but intelligently so; James, larger than life, throws off emotion and drama and intensity like sparks kindling flame—Michael leans over to whisper, “Remind me never to believe you again when you say you can’t be an action hero,” and James rolls his eyes, plainly saving that argument for another time—and he commands every scene he’s in, and Michael’d be looking at him anyway but he’s looking this time because James is so damn compelling.

He contemplates, momentarily, whether he could talk James into bringing home a prop gun and some of that wardrobe. Probably not. James is up for almost anything, in bed, but that _is_ an almost. Some things earn an unequivocal no, and those things always involve potential hurt to Michael, even in play.

Michael wonders sometimes, some late nights and mornings-after, whether they need to have a talk about this. James never says no to anything Michael wants to do to _him_.

He squeezes that hand, in his, one more time.

James taps fingers over his, in response. The gesture might be flirtation, or exasperation at all the coddling, or simply a way of saying _still here_. Michael wouldn’t be surprised if it were all three.

Film-James, surrounded by shades of blue and steel, gets shot. The bullet goes right through his leg. Knocks him to the ground. He doesn’t get up, after.

It’s not real. It’s _not_. That’s a stunt.

James does all his own stunts.

James has been hurt, doing his own stunts, before. James is _still_ hurt, on long days, on rainy days, grey days that make improperly-healed joints ache and each step an exercise in pain.

The sharp teeth of memory obligingly drag up that most recent day, not long enough ago yet or ever—hastily bundled bandages, that knee folding under any attempt to stand, the whiteness of already-pale skin beneath the freckles, the weight of James in his arms—and then sit there gnawing the shape of fear into his heart.

“You’re twitching.”

“I am not.”

“Yes, you are. Stop that.” James nudges a shoulder into his, though, despite the words. And Michael sighs, inwardly, and drapes his arm around those same shoulders.

This comfortable state of affairs lasts for all of another ten minutes, until film-James gets beaten up even more, kicked and hit and bruised. There’s blood on his face. In his hair.

“Seriously,” James says, and shifts a leg, moves a foot, stops the butterfly-tapping of Michael’s toes. “I’m fine. You can relax. I’m right here.”

“I didn’t even notice, that time!”

At this point Mark Strong leans forward from the row behind them and hisses, “Would you two kindly shut up, I’m trying to watch myself menace you!”

“Sorry!” James sounds genuinely apologetic; Michael just turns around and glares. Of course it’s fictional menace. Not actual. But.

“ _Michael_ ,” James sighs, and then grabs his hand and tugs and somehow they’re both on their feet and ducking out of the darkened theater and into the dazzling lights of the lobby, and Michael’s blinking, blinded by the glare.

It _is_ a friendly theater, or at least friendly to James, who seems to know exactly where they’re going despite to the best of Michael’s knowledge never having visited before. Determined hands and  irresistible eyes get them around several corners and down a red plush hallway and up a flight of sprawling stairs, full of ornate details Michael doesn’t register because he’s trying to keep up, physically and mentally.

“…really? Here?”

“It’s this or the projection booth,” James retorts promptly, “and I don’t want to have to pay for any broken equipment this time. Anyway, it’s nice.”

Nice is not a word Michael generally applies to men’s rooms, but he has to admit that, yes, if they are, this one is. Spacious. Opulent. Gold and marble. There’re even chairs. And it’s _nice_ enough to have an actual attendant, for god’s sake, hovering at the door.

The attendant winks at James. Michael’s not certain what that means, but then the man pointedly backs off and shuts the door and leaves the two of them alone with all the chairs and the opulence.

“What—”

“I was planning to do this later,” James says, “but now is good too,” and then puts both hands into Michael’s hair and tugs his head down into a kiss, uninhibited and luscious and lingeringly martini-flavored.

“You—you were planning—”

“I _was_ arranging certain things for after the movie. But I’m thinking you could use the distraction now.” And James moves even closer, backs Michael up against the closest wall and kisses him, decisive and brilliant, lips and tongue and light nips of teeth, everything he knows will drive Michael insane, all those movements and angles and reminders brought out and put into play, and Michael can’t think, after a while, taste and sight and sound all blurring into _James_ , in his arms.

James stops standing on tiptoes for a second, which puts him at just the right angle to nibble at Michael’s neck, that suddenly so-receptive spot where his jaw meets his throat; Michael tilts his head to offer better access, helpless in the face of James’s apparent resolution to leave him quivering and breathless and exhausted, and feels rather than sees the resulting smile, lips curving along his skin.

“Not leaving marks,” James murmurs, breath making all the tiny hairs on his neck stand up, “not now, at least, we have a premiere to get back to, after…”

“We’re…oh god do that again…we _are_ missing your premiere…”

“Something else happens to be more important.” One hand’s happily untucking Michael’s shirt. Michael lets his head fall back against the wall, lets James ruin his carefully chosen suit and take him apart.

Another potential difficulty does occur to him, albeit distantly, as he’s failing to maintain any sort of balance while James plays with his left nipple, flicking, pinching, tantalizing.

“…James?”

“You can still talk? I  must not be doing this well enough.”

“You’re…doing this _amazingly_ …but we’re in the…in a public…people might come in…”

“No, they won’t.” James leans back up for another kiss, deep and slow and sinful. “I didn’t pay the attendant that much for nothing. Why do you still have a belt on?”

The belt disappears before Michael can think of any reply. The wall props him up, conspiratorial support.

James grins at him. Drops to his knees. One eloquent motion.

“Wait—you—James, wait, please, you shouldn’t—”

“My knee,” James announces, “is entirely fine, and I am thoroughly prepared to prove it to you,” and while Michael’s been protesting those talented hands’ve been very busy, and all at once the lower half of Michael’s clothing is somewhere around his ankles and James’s fingers are running up along his thighs, making the muscles tingle, every individual nerve catching fire.

Michael opens his mouth to object one more time, and then James leans forward and _licks_ , one impudently swift sweep of tongue, and somebody moans in response, and Michael’s pretty sure it’s him, and he would be embarrassed about the high-pitched desperation in the sound, except he doesn’t have time to be embarrassed, because James slides that remarkable mouth down over him, surrounding him, enfolding him in heat and wetness and suction and friction.

Michael moans and gasps and whimpers and makes every kind of noise imaginable, everything James draws out of him, words when he can manage them, _so good, so beautiful_ and _love you, love you so damn much,_ and _so close, James, please_ , and he’s not sure what he’s asking for: he’s asking for James to make him come and to not let him come yet and to let him remember this moment forever and to be here, right here, with him always.

James pauses to look up at him and smile, eyes all lit up like sunrise over oceans in the clear amber light of the room, the quiet plush excitement of the chairs and the naked thrill in the air.

And then one hand drifts purposefully away from the base of Michael’s cock, skimming over the tight weight behind them, teasing and cupping, and Michael says something that’s the first half of an obscenity but never gets finished because James fits a finger right _there_ , and presses gently, and Michael’s words vanish into the night.

James grins, licks his lips, licks eager drops of wetness from Michael’s skin, and then goes back to all those previous motions, unhesitatingly. Repeatedly. In magnificent rhythm.

Michael grabs at the wall for balance, gasps, gets out, “James, I’m going to—” and James does _something_ with that tongue and that fingertip and the whole world turns into coruscating rainbows, exploding prisms, voiceless joy.

Eventually, collapsed limply against that wonderful supportive wall, he opens his eyes.

James is looking up at him, smile hovering around the corners of wet lips, the canyons of seawater eyes; James looks far too satisfied, Michael thinks, too content to remain on his knees and bask in the afterglow of Michael’s orgasm forever.

“Up,” he manages, still breathing hard, and when James smiles again and listens, uncomplainingly compliant, Michael catches his arms and walks him over to the closest companionable chair and pushes him down into accepting cushions.

“But—”

“Your turn.” He’s actually a little grateful to be the one on the floor. His legs are still shaky. But it’s definitely time to return the favor.

He doesn’t do this often enough. He always thinks that, every time, but it’s true. James is quicker to offer, and more experienced, a fact which had been the subject of two heated arguments before Michael’d figured out that when James brings up that particular disparity it’s because James himself is feeling inadequate. These days, he tries to offer whenever he can, and takes mental notes on every touch and movement and position that earn those breathless gasps, not because it’s any kind of competition but because he loves watching James forget the rest of the world and come apart for him.

James blushes, barely noticeable, when Michael frees him from confining clothing, all enticingly flushed and ready, silk skin and hardness. It’s not embarrassment, because James isn’t easily embarrassed; it’s not shyness, because James isn’t shy. It’s a different emotion, more complicated, that exists at the intersection of desire and intimacy and self-deprecation and surprise.

Surprise, he thinks, and then leans forward and kisses that inviting tip, one quick movement, not opening his mouth— _yet_ —but perfectly simple, practically chaste.

It works, too. James sits up more, eyes all round and bewildered. “You—that—you—”

Michael grins at him, and after a second James laughs helplessly and shakes his head and says “I love you.”

“Oh,” Michael says, “I know,” and then puts his mouth back on James in earnest, taking him all the way in this time, tongue stroking all over that length, up and down and across the head, chasing quivering drops of wetness and tasting them all. James makes a sound that might’ve started as his name but transforms into a groan, and his hips shiver upwards, pushing deeper; good, that’s exactly right, James forgetting to hold back and giving in to his own need, so Michael slips a hand under him and holds him there, taking all of him, everything James has to give.

James is panting, now, small gulps of air, the little noises that mean he’s close, and one hand curls into Michael’s hair, not asking for control but seeking closeness, the need to touch, and Michael keeps that particular pace going, just like that, a touch more pressure right _there_ , and feels James tighten and tense and then shudder everywhere, as the peak hits.

He swallows, once, twice, tasting James on his tongue, and then turns his attention back to James himself, licking softly along the softening arousal, until he hears the small wordless sound of not-quite-protest, not asking him to stop but overly sensitive now, and Michael pulls back, understanding.

He kisses James once more, a light brush of lips over deliciously sticky skin; this gets a sound that would be a laugh if James weren’t blissfully exhausted.

“You…”

“Shh,” Michael tells him, and kisses his inner thigh, right over a firework profusion of freckles. Cinnamon and sugar. Flushed skin and a hint of sweat and expensive suit fabric and James. If he’d not just had one of the best orgasms of his life, that scent, that taste, might be enough to get him off again, intoxicated and enchanted. As it is, his cock twitches, one valiant effort, as he sits there on the ground with his face between James’s spread thighs.

“Michael,” James says, and shuts his eyes briefly, and then opens them, blue-black glinting lazily with the overflow of pleasure. “That was…you…how’re you, then?”

“I’m wonderful.” He kisses James’s knee, this time. An unspoken question; it gets an unspoken answer, too, as James touches his head again, runs a fingertip over his cheek, grins. They’re all right. They’re both all right. They’re perfect, even when they’re not.

He cleans them both up, after. James tries to argue, even going so far as attempting to get up, and Michael says “Stay put or I’ll tie you to the chair,” and James raises both eyebrows and murmurs, through a yawn, “I wouldn’t mind…” and Michael says “ _Really_ ” and files that one away for future reference.

When he’s finished getting them as tidy as possible under the circumstances, he pauses, standing next to the chair, gazing down. James looks up at him, and then smiles, sudden and bright and fearlessly happy. Michael’s breath catches, in his chest.

“I’m wonderful, too,” James says, and reaches up a hand, and Michael pulls him up to his feet, both feet, standing strong and square and beautiful before him. “I love you.”

“And I love you. We’ve completely missed your movie.”

“Worth it,” James flips back, no regrets, grinning up into his eyes, hair cheerfully defying gravity in all directions, “we can always watch it later. If you think you can sit through it another time. Was that sufficient proof of patellar health, for you?”

“…what? Oh. I…no, I think I might need to take you home. And keep you in bed. For several days. Just to be sure you’re not walking anywhere.”

“And how’re you hoping to accomplish that, then?”

“Well,” Michael tells him earnestly, “I would very much like to fuck you senseless, for one,” and James laughs, Scottish gold shot through with affectionate mischief. “You’re lucky I do plan ahead, then, aren’t you? We’ve got a hotel room for tonight. One of those antique places you like so much. Historical. With character.”

“Oh—but—” and then he says “ _oh_ —” again as James picks up his hand, plays with his fingers, studies the way they fit together, long pale skin and shorter broader freckled warmth.

But they’re in London. Not _that_ far from home. And James never sleeps well in hotel rooms. Worse than usual. Unfamiliar shapes in the night.

“You’ll just have to tire me out,” James says, smiling, kissing him, reading his mind. “So that I can sleep. In your arms, maybe, with you holding me…after the fucking me senseless part, of course. You did say.”

“I did. I can do that. I want to do that. All of that, I mean.” Anything. Everything. Always.

“Yes,” James says, still smiling, “you can, I want that too.”

_well, rave on, it’s a crazy feelin’_   
_and I know, it’s got me reelin’_   
_I’m so glad that you’re revealin’_   
_your love for me_


End file.
